Start a Conversation

Unsolved

L

3 Posts

615

August 21st, 2020 02:00

Not Enough Space on My C Drive

Hi,
 
The C Drive on my Dell Inspiron laptop (purchased 2-3 years ago) has too little space available to update Windows 10.  But there was a D drive with 931 MB of free space that was inaccessible to me.  I found a previous suggestion in this Community to expand the C drive into the D drive by deleting volume in the D Drive and then extending the C drive volume.  I got as far as deleting the D drive volume, but then could not extend the C drive volume.  Now the D drive, and its 931 MB of free space, is gone.  Presumably it is out there somewhere.  Any ideas how to get it back and then, most importantly how I can actually use the 931 MB?
 

 

10 Elder

 • 

23.2K Posts

August 21st, 2020 03:00

Open the disc manager to partition and format the former drive (start-run-diskmgmt.msc).

However, C and D must remain separate partitions - you cannot span them with a single boot partition.

You can run disc cleanup on C: (link below) and uninstall large programs from C: and reinstall them to

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026616/windows-10-disk-cleanup

4 Operator

 • 

4K Posts

August 21st, 2020 03:00

Free up space on the system volume

Use Disk Cleanup, or try to move files to an external location such as a CD, DVD, or external hard disk drive. Then, restart the installation. Make sure that required free space is available on the system drive.

To free up space on your hard disk, Disk Cleanup finds and then removes temporary files on your computer that you decide you no longer need. If you have more than one drive or partition on your computer, you are prompted to select the drive that you want Disk Cleanup to clean.

To start Disk Cleanup, click Start

 

 

, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools, and then click Disk Cleanup.

4 Operator

 • 

14K Posts

August 21st, 2020 09:00

@LTCBru  If the D partition was on a different physical disk, which is likely, then you cannot extend the C partition to span over to that physical disk.  Deleting a partition and extending an existing partition into that freed up space applies to cases where both partitions are on the same physical disk.  So if you want to use your 931 GB, you'll need to create a partition on that drive again, and then move some of your content from C over to D.  To figure out what's taking up so much space, download an app called TreeSize Free, run it as administrators so it can view all folders, and tell it to map out your C drive.  It will sort folders by largest to smallest, and when you drill into a folder, all of its subfolders will be sorted the same way, so it becomes very clear very quickly what's taking up space on your system.  If you want to move some of your entire profile folders, e.g. Desktop, Documents, Music, you can right-click those folders in their current location, then select the Location tab, and choose to move them over to somewhere on your D drive.  Or if you just want to move certain files, such as photos, music, videos, etc., then do that.  If it's application folders that are taking up space, you'll need to uninstall them and reinstall them, making sure to choose to install them onto a folder on your D drive during the reinstallation, rather than the default C drive location.


3 Posts

August 29th, 2020 05:00

Thanks to all who responded.  Generally very helpful, but my PC sophistication is quite limited.  I did manage to use what you folks have provided to find "hidden/lost" photos and free up enough space for the Windows updates.  When I return home I'll try to find someone to sit in front of my laptop and re-organize whatever I messed up.  Again thanks.

No Events found!

Top